Documentary

Einstein proved that time is relative. But it’s moviemakers like Conor McDonnell who allow us to see the malleability of the fourth dimension. In “100 Second Week” McDonnnell reduces a journey spanning 168 hours to 100 seconds. Time bending in movies can be done in several ways. You can vary the frame rate to create

A memorable mini-doc must have strong images. But as we learn in Robb Montgomery’s “El Tatio Geyers,” concise, carefully written text can add clarity and drama. Montgomery, a celebrated mobile journalist and film teacher, illustrates four ways to use titles in this short travelogue: He titles the video: “El Tatio Geyers” (0:04) He identifies the location: “In the

Mac Premo’s astonishing–“The Function of Music”–teaches three keys to making a successful video interview: 1) find a person (the interviewee) that the audience might like to know; 2) have a specific subject in mind (often the answer to a question); and 3) use visual examples (“B-roll”). “The Function of Music,” which was shown at the 2017 Disposable Film Festival, checks all three

“The Sapeh Keeper” beautifully illustrates the two kinds of dialogue found in most well-made mini-docs. The filmmaker Mariah Ahmad gives us scenes where her subject Mathew Ngau Jau is shown talking about the Sapeh, a lute played by traditional Malaysian musicians. These “talking-head” clips are then intercut with scenes in which Jau’s comments are played as

A few seconds into “London Graffiti Artists,” a title card reads: “The world is racing past us…sometimes we need to slow down.” To help us accomplish that difficult feat, the director Cassius Rayner has shot his mini-doc entirely in slow motion. “London Graffiti was shot using an iPhone 6s and a Smooth C 3 axis gimbal. The